


accepting the risk of absence

by terafonne (lexiconicality)



Category: NCIS
Genre: Freeform, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3711883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexiconicality/pseuds/terafonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, How Everyone in NCIS is At Least a Little Queer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	accepting the risk of absence

**Author's Note:**

> someone, i think on tumblr, said something about how statistically tho, most people were straight. and i was like. okay. but what if they weren't? bc c'mon, everyone's a least a little gay. in this story, some people are more than others. (also i wrote this over several months, so my writing style is probably erratic at best.)

Antonia (Toni) might be too obvious, but it's there, easy and safe to slip into like little black dresses and jade earrings to bring out her eyes and high needle-thin strappy heels and soft cotton panties, like long curled chocolate brown hair streaked with blonde brushing low on her back as she dances slow with herself in the living room. (She wonders, sometimes, whether Gibbs would pay anymore attention to _her_ than him.)

 

* * *

 

Ziva had learnt by necessity how to bind her breasts (his chest) flat, how to hold his shorn head high and stand tall despite her height. And she learned that he liked it. But she also learned the power she could hold with coy wink and full pouty lips, dark smoldering eyes beneath darker lashes (and darker still the dried blood of her targets on her hands spilt and drying in a seemingly neverending cycle). It got the job done (so she rationalized to himself to her father his sister her brother their most precious people).

 

After Ari (oh, Ari, my brother what have you done) and her foreseeable future is relocated to the States, she begins to utilize more of technology of the everyday electronics and begins to rely a little even, on the constancy of the great and vast internet. And within these veritably infinite depths she finds release in the anonymity where nothing except her his them, just their mind. It doesn't hurt, not at all, when some of the conversations they have with equally and ubiquitously anonymous people (nothing more nothing less) tell him that her lack of reaction considering the kind of cover work she employs to gain the trust of a great many targets says nothing on him as a person (she isn't broken, after all).

 

And it's nice to have a label reaffirm his existence no matter that she stumbles saying it to herself at night in bed nowhere near sleep, tasting her brother's name beneath it, and he twists the sheets closer feeling sharply vulnerable and wishes for a warm body (any person at all, just warm and breathing and living with a pulse to thrum hot and fast as he distracts himself from his ghosts).

 

* * *

 

McGee, is not, despite what Tony and Ziva (and Kate, too, before) constantly assume with waggled eyebrows and leering smirks traded over office desks and crime scenes alike, a virgin. He had, at the time, been fully sober and willing, and it was not a particularly awful experience as in yes, he had been able to orgasm. Regardless, he doesn't think it's an experience he needs to repeat, and so trudges ever onwards in his search for a potential life partner completely cognizant of the fact he is ignoring a startlingly large number of sexual invitations, subtle or otherwise (he's blaming his fans). Then again the colors of the icing on the cupcakes Tony contributed to his most recent birthday tell a different story.

 

* * *

 

Palmer and Breena had arranged a dinner every couple of months to check up on things with Allana, the surrogate mother, outside of clinical doctors' visits and reports. Somehow it turns from every couple of months to every few days (when they're off cases anyway) and somewhere along the line Allana becomes Aly and Mr. and Mrs. Palmer become Jimmy and Breena until finally one day when Aly's car craps out so they generously offer to drive her home and then Breena's gasping into Aly's mouth, and Jimmy closes the banged-up apartment door behind him as they both give him a look asking what he's waiting for, and it's then he realizes they've all fallen in love with each other and suddenly just how good Aly looks pregnant hits him and Breena with her rosebud lips swollen and slick with saliva, and he feels a little bit of him click into place that hadn't been there since highschool with Erin and Nathaniel and Isabella.

 

Later Aly will move out of her paint-peeling, ceiling cracking flat and into their home. Later they'll all take turns getting up at insane hours of the night to feed the baby. Later Palmer will introduce both wives to the team, and not even Tony cracks a joke about how he got lucky, and looking back he really should have guessed something was up then.

 

* * *

 

Kate knew, obviously, about the sexism prevalent in her line of work, but she found it bothered here far more than she expected. Why did society have two genders anyway, she'd wonder sometimes before traditional conventions snapped back boundaries in her mind, telling her about genitals and the religion she'd been fervently trained in. But there were exceptions, weren't there? And enough exceptions meant a minority. It meant a demographic. Sometimes she went undercover. And sometimes that meant people mistook her for a guy. And she never bothered to correct them. She was confident enough in her ability to attract people with cocks anyway.

 

* * *

 

Ducky, in his many misadventures around the world, had experienced many things. Sex with a variety of people was included, of course. However, he first lost his virginity quite scandalously to his anatomy professor. A great many puns were involved.

 

* * *

 

Abby's household was by necessity warm with body language. So even though she couldn't quite find the words necessary to tell her parents how she felt, they were comfortable letting her explore. When she began to feel uncomfortable at the early stages of puberty, they took her to doctors who explained the difference between gender identities and sex, and the options they could take. And it was liberating to express herself.

 

While her parents were at times slightly concerned with her emo phase, and relieved when it mellowed into a more victorian goth, they never questioned her identity or how she dated girls and never one at a time.

 

As she grew, having transitioned early, it was rare that she was called out. Until a sabotaged explosive in the lab sprayed acid on her and the team (because of course it happens to them and never anyone else), forcing them all to strip and decon immediately. The scars are more visible than she'd like, as the product of surgery from a decade ago. They're surprised when they see it--everyone's trying not to look at each other crammed together under the emergency showerhead but they can't resist the urge. Except Tony, whose gaze is blatant and definitely trying to hide his shock, until Gibbs headslaps him. No one says anything, it's already more than awkward enough. After the decon, everyone safely and soundly dressed again, Ziva finds her in the bathroom, partially to hide and partially because the lab is cordoned off at the moment being investigated. They doesn't say anything, just hugs her. Abby almost doesn't cry, but she remembers that her fairly newfound brother had given her the waterproof brand of mascara she was using, and breaks into sobs on Ziva's shoulder.

 

* * *

 

It's true that Gibbs was only married four times, but he had been in love twice. Before Shannon and Kelly, there had been the army. DADT wasn't established until after he'd already joined NCIS, but the sentiment was there. It had never stood a chance. It started with talks that went far too late when they'd have to get up before dawn. It strengthened over commiserated graveyard shifts, torturous officers, awful weather, and worse terrain, until the smoldering of months exploded into feverish excitement at any and every oppurtunity possible. But it was also war, and when Andy was killed in action Gibbs couldn't say he hadn't been expecting it.

 

Then he met Shannon, who was healing him like he thought nothing else ever would, until Kelly, and she was just everything she could have ever wanted. And it was taken from him, like before, with one bullet. It took Gibbs a long time to recover from that one. There were his other wives but they were only pale ghosts, paltry replacements.

 

So he could be forgiven for not realizing what was happening when he first met Tony. All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the kid was more than eager to jump for him. So he named it affection, and categorized it under fatherly. It seemed fitting, then, that the bullet, when it came, was slow and torturous as well. Tony, wracked with plague, odds stacked against him, coughing up blood that looked dark purple under blue antimicrobial lights and Gibbs alone on the other side of what might as well be a glass wall, despite holding his hand, with the mounting realization that should he lose Tony, he would not recover. Gibbs was old. He probably should consider retiring soon, giving up his place to allow those like Tony to step up. There probably wouldn't be another two decades or so for him to grieve. And yet that also indicated the disparity between him and Tony, who still had so much in time and oppurtunities. It would be utterly selfish of Gibbs, who had already had so many chances, to try to monopolize him. Such was his resolution.

 

* * *

 

It starts like this: There is a party. Maybe Abby invites them all someplace. Maybe it's New Year's, or some other holiday. Maybe they just solved a particularly difficult case. Maybe there's some official function. Maybe they're just hanging out. Ziva drives Tony home, and he invites them in. Maybe it's the fact he can barely walk, but they do, bracing themself for any crass remark. They do not expect him to break down sobbing as they attempt to help him out of his shoes. Especially not about how Gibbs could only love red-haired women, and sometimes he physically wants to throw up because there's a dick between his legs even though most times he'd be perfectly okay using that dick to fuck something or anything except for way too long that he'd rather Gibbs than just anyone else.

 

When he's done talking, the combination of exhaustion and alcohol does him in, and Ziva makes sure to tuck him under the blankets. She makes several calls. In the morning when Tony wakes up, he won't remember much, just dizziness and darkness and Ziva. He'll wake up to a glass of water and two Advil at his bedside and go back to sleep. There is an email waiting in his inbox, full of all the things Ziva can't say aloud, links and resources and encouragement she's not used to spitting out of her mouth. And after the quiet of the weekend, he'll go to work, where MCRT will have been assigned a case that requires them, specifically, Tony, to go undercover as a transvestite. Ziva accompanies him, since he's kind of flawlessly blendable - it must be their cheekbones - pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.

 

There's a thrill zipping sparks up her spine as she walks, knowing that everyone is watching her being a girl, and doing it well. More than once while waiting for the target to do the dropoff, she's been propositioned by guys and girls alike. (She can't know that each time, Gibb's heart jackknifes up, with fear and protectiveness and jealousy.) So maybe it does make her a little reckless, maybe he wants more than the intellectual acknowledgement that he's being watched.

 

After all is said and done, their target is apprehended, but there's also a helluva lot of blood, a bullet in Tony's clavicle, a callused hand tightly clasping his, the sound of sirens in his ears, and a pair of ice-blue eyes in his vision. After the surgery, he's half-delirious on pain meds but awake, and Gibbs though not drugged up, is definitely sleep deprived and awake. He doesn't understand why Gibbs is here. _You're my subordinate._  Well, yeah, but still here? Shouldn't there be paperwork he should be taking care of? _C'mon, Tony. Go to sleep._ Why does it sound like he's having a conversation? _Probably because you need to go to sleep._  There's amusement in that one. He doesn't want to sleep though. He'll dream. And then he'll wake up and it won't be real because it never is. Is that Gibbs? Looks like Gibbs, maybe he's already dreaming. _Tony. Why would Gibbs be in your dreams?_ Gibbs always in his dreams... so can't he just... _Do you want Gibbs to leave?_ He looks up at that, startled, to see dream-Gibbs standing up, and desperately snatches his hand, aware he's talking now, babbling more like, "Don't leave, you can't leave me, please."

 

He curls up around Gibbs' hand, tucking it under his face and hooking his elbows around it to prevent him from leaving, and falls asleep to Gibbs' thumb steadily stroking his cheek. Gibbs wakes before Tony the next morning, since he was only dozing in the chair, and extricates his numb hand to get the blood flowing again. He's still bent over, inches away watching the blood pump under the purple webbing of the bruise spreading from his wound and the movement of the thin skin of his eyelids that indicate he's beginning to wake up. When he does, his eyes focus immediately on Gibbs, the drowsy, drugged glaze gone. He can see the way Tony's mouth opens slightly when his breath hitches, and the slight lowering of his lashes that fails to hide the dilation of his pupils. His gaze drops back down to his mouth when the tip of Tony's tongue swipes at his bottom lip, the quick pink leaving behind a trail of saliva. It's the easiest thing in the world, then, to lean forward and fit his mouth to his own. Tony sits up to kiss back harder, Gibbs slants his head to accomodate, and it's only the aggravated beeping of the heart monitor that forces them to stop. "Oh," says Tony weakly when Gibbs pulls away. "I thought. I don't know."

 

"It can wait until after you're discharged," Gibbs assures. 

 

Tony leans back into his pillows, but doesn't let go of Gibbs hand. 

 

The doctor lets him go that evening with a strict warning for bed rest. Gibbs compromises on Tony's apartment rather than his house with the permission for him to stay and take care of Tony for as long as he needs to.

 

"Mother-hen," gripes Tony playfully. The headslap he gets for that one is barely a feathertap, but he knows Gibbs is just saving up for after he heals. 

 

Once he's in his apartment, though, the only confidence he has is faked. He tells Gibbs how much this is something he wants him to know. 

 

_Sometimes, I don't feel like a man. This isn't about confidence. Sometimes... I really hate having a dick. But it's only sometimes, and Ziva said, there's this word, genderfluid. I want to use that word, but I don't want you to think I'm a freak._

 

"I'm pretty sure," says Gibbs, "that I fell in love with you, not your dick."

 

And it's too much, at all once, the _l_ word, and the acceptance, and Gibbs' reciprocation. Gibbs brushes away the few tears that do fall, and holds him while he trembles and buries his face in his shoulder. He talks about how everyone would accrpt him as well, and Abby would be delighted, and finally kisses Tony very sweetly.

 

"We'll be okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Ziva: aromantic genderfluid pansexual  
> Tony: bisexual genderfluid  
> Gibbs: biromantic demisexual  
> Palmer: polyamory gray-asexual  
> Abby: transgender polyamory lesbian  
> McGee: asexual  
> Kate: agender heterosexual   
> Ducky: pansexual


End file.
